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"A handy roundup of the best social media dashboards and the benefits they can bring your small business, including cost"

1) HootSuite Easy to use and packed with features, Hootsuite is probably the most widely known social media dashboard. It’s also free with basic features, and you can upgrade inexpensively to a pro version.

HootSuite lets you manage your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, and you can also toss in Google+, Foursquare, WordPress, and MySpace. The platform offers apps that allow you to monitor and manage Flickr, YouTube, Tumblr, and more — including marketing tools such as MailChimp or Constant Contact.

The free version includes message scheduling and basic analytics. The pro upgrade offers advanced scheduling tools and analytics, including integration with Google Analytics, and HootSuite University, a social media training and certification program.

Cost: The basic version is free for one user and up to five accounts. HootSuite Pro starts at $5.99 a month with a 30-day free trial, and gives you two users and unlimited accounts.

"No Romulan cloaking device (or Harry Potter invisibility cloak) for your digital footprint, including email? The Times shares easy & many free ways to create less of a lighted trail."

Sharing on FBook, Google+ and ScooptIt. Heh.

That said, I'd also say there's a balance of getting lots of services for free (Gmail, Google Search, Google Apps, tailored results) vs. the tradeoffs mentioned here. Some say it's cool, not creepy. Others, as here, say it is creepy, and NOT cool. Here's a perspective to add to your digital learning landscape. ~ Deb

Excerpted:

It’s probably impossible to cloak your online activities fully, but there are steps you can take to make them harder to follow.

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There are no secrets online. ...while it’s probably impossible to cloak your online activities fully, you can take steps, [some] quite easy and many are free.

The trick is to find the right balance between cost, convenience and privacy.

...security experts and privacy advocates said more worrisome were Internet service providers, search engine operators, e-mail suppliers and Web site administrators — particularly if a single entity acts in more than one capacity, like Google, Yahoo, Facebook and AOL. This means they can easily collect and cross-reference your data, that is, match your e-mails with your browsing history, as well as figure out your location and identify all the devices you use to connect to the Internet.

“The worst part is they sell this extremely creepy intrusion as a great boon to your life because they can tailor services to your needs,” said Paul Ohm, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder who specializes in information privacy and computer crime.

He advised logging off sites like Google and Facebook as soon as practicably possible and not using the same provider for multiple functions if you can help it.

“If you search on Google, maybe you don’t want to use Gmail for your e-mail,” he said. ...But even with your own mail server, Google will still have the e-mails you exchange with friends or colleagues with Gmail accounts, said Peter Eckersley of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group in San Francisco. “You’re less exposed,” he said. “But you can’t totally escape.”

Carving out the professional cocktail party, talent pool that is LinkedIn may be the smarter strategy: a slice of something massive in all that is social.

You may have heard the analogies before e.g. LinkedIn is the cocktail party, Facebook is the backyard B-B-Q. Here's how LinkedIn is making it work in social in the power of that professional party niche, circa 2012 with their current successes & future plans. ~ Deb

Excerpted from Forbes, author, George Anders:

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"There could be data on every economic opportunity, every skill required to get those jobs and every company offering those roles." ~ Jeff Weiner, CEO, LinkedIn

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Linked is has:

LinkedIn Today, a customized news site that lets people see a front page tailored for their careers.

Thousands of profession-specific discussion boards, which cater to everyone from auditors to zookeepers.

Plans to create an “economic graph” that would show all the matches—and mismatches—between needed skills and available talent worldwide.

“...There could be data on every economic opportunity, every skill required to get those jobs and every company offering those roles. There could be a professional profile for every member of the 3.3 billion people in the global workforce." ~ Jeff Weiner, CEO, LinkedIn

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.